Wovember! Are you ready?

Wovember is the brilliant idea of knit designer Kate Davies and artist and crafter Felicity Ford. Established in 2011, it’s an annual, month-long-celebration of all things wooly.

Quoting from the website, “The idea is to show our collective appreciation of WOOL by wearing as much of this fabulous fibre as possible, and celebrating WOOL and its unique qualities in stories and pictures throughout the month of November. We hope that through our enthusiasm and creativity we can raise awareness of WHAT MAKES WOOL DIFFERENT, and jointly create a force for WOOL APPRECIATION strong enough to effect changes in how garments and textiles are described and marketed.”

And this isn’t just a knitter’s initiative. It’s about education on the environmental impacts, and supporting local farmers and small industry. It’s about driving changes to textile trading standards.

Get involved by wearing as much wool as possible throughout the month of Wovember, and telling everyone about the unique qualities of wool. Visit the project’s website for pictures and stories, and more information.

Do you have enough wool in your life to wear it every day in November? I know I do! For me, it’s a pair of wool socks (sometimes two if it’s very cold), a scarf when I go out, and I a usually wearing a wool long sleeve tshirt, too. (This sort of thing.) I also have a wool dress, jackets – and of course, mittens, hats and my hand-made garments.

I wear wool all year round, every day. People think of wool as something to keep you warm, but the beauty of the stuff is that it actually helps you regulate your temperature, so it keeps you warm when it’s cold and it helps you stay cool when it’s hot.

I love spinning, knitting and wearing wool, and some of the wool blends, particulary wool and silk, wool socks are wonderful, they keep feet so comfy. Even when it is wet wool retains 40% of its insulation value!

I’m still pretty new to knitting, but I have learned a lot about wool recently. I spent a weekend at a working “fiber farm” and learned about the different sheep and goats, about the qualities of the different fibers and how/why they are blended. The weekend was spent learning to dye yarn, but in order to do that you really have to understand the fiber to know how it is going to take the dye. It is really interesting (I’m a nerd at heart) and it was also a lesson in chemistry. Now I’m working on knitting with all the wool that I dyed (there’s A LOT) as well as all the yarn that I’ve bought for various projects. I have the wool for about 40 projects in my Ravelry queue. Now I’m working on actually finishing stuff that I can wear! I definitely do a lot of showing off, though, because I take my knitting with me everywhere I go and people are always asking about what I’m knitting, so I get to expose people in that manner. Nearly finished with a super-soft cowl just in time for the cold weather here in Wisconsin.